The Widow's Lament in Springtime

I felt a lot of sympathy for the speaker of this poem. She's looking at the nature around her and all of it reminds her of her deceased husband. I found a  paradox in the poem, "cold fire". She is explaining how she sees things differently now that her husband is gone and pain is now overcoming her life. I think the paradox is effective because it shows how drastically the speaker's emotions have changed. She feels like she is being engulfed by darkness and despair. The vibrant "fire" or zest for life she once had has been transformed to "cold". However, it's not the nature's beauty that has changed, but the woman's attitude. The line "some bushes yellow and some red but the grief in my heart is stronger than they" states that the woman has given up hope and feels like her only option is suicide.